I have been granted an ILR today.
Immigration Details:
Entry Clearance Date under HSMP: 8/02/2007 (valid until 8/02/2009)
First Entry to the UK: 19/03/2007
Extension under Tier1: valid until 08/02/2012
Date of application for (and grant of) ILR through premium service: 12/01/2012
Process details:
- Booked appointment online for 12/01/2012, 12:30PM
- Arrived: 11:45, not let enter and told to come back at 12:00PM
- Entered at 12:00PM
- Passed through security check in 5 minutes
- And then, waited for application validity check in the queue for 15 minutes
- The application validity check took about 8 minutes
- Sent to the payment counter and made a payment through Lloyds TSB Debit Card in 2 minutes, was assigned a token after this
- Now it was 12:30PM
- Waited until 2PM for my turn to get assigned a case worker
- The lady took about 30 minutes (until 2:30PM) to go through the application, document, and form checks and say: "I'm pleased to say that your application has been approved, please collect your passport from counter number 22 in an hour"
- Passport was ready for collection at 3:17PM, that is, in 47 minutes, with ILR sticker
Other Details:
Number of applicants: 1
Number of days of (Business + Leisure) absence from UK: 155
Longest continuous absence from UK: 45 days
First Employment: 8/05/2007 - 17/07/2007
Second Employment: 23/07/2007 - 31/12/2011 [made redundant]
Third Employment: 1/01/2012 - present
Occupation: Software Engineer
Experience at PEO:
- When then say: "please arrive 30 minutes early", then mean: "please arrive no more than 30 minutes early, otherwise you will have to wait somewhere outside in the cold"
- Security check was smooth
- There was a long wait for application validity check, only two out of ten counters were open, then guy doing the check was quiet, slow and unprofessional (he received the call on his mobile phone in the middle of application check).
- Payment process was smooth and quick
- A very long wait after payment for non-biometric ILR premium applicants, for others, tokens were moving more swiftly
- Case worker was one of the most polite public service professionals I have ever met. She thanked me several times for providing cover letters for salary and absence list and said to me that it made her job easier. She was also sympathetic to me that I was having to give her the documents one by one and asked me to hand her over all the documents and sit and enjoy
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
- She did not ask me any questions apart from: "has your salary been increased since your last tier1 application, I answered in affirmative (though this was not the requirement. probably, she just asked it out of curiosity)
- She also asked me if I wanted to know the correct answers I scored in my Life in UK test. I replied to her that yes I did want to know. Then she asked me to guess, I guessed 21/22 out of 24 and it was 22 actually!
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
- I have worked in Ericsson and submitted a letter from Ericsson. She told me laughing that she doesn't like Ericsson phones, she prefers Nokia ones
- I also noticed that she did not go through every detail mentioned in payslips and bank statements, she just randomly checked a few pages
- She was satisfied with all the documents I had provided and didn't ask for any additional document. For economic activity requirement, I had provided only 3 P60s + a letter from HMRC detailing my earnings for four years and a last P45 and she was happy with this all.
- She was NOT Caucasian English (no offence to anyone).
Please let me know if you want to know any other details.
Ciao!